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Volume 14 | Number 1 | September 2012

By Steve Kiggins

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Who could turn a black plastic trash bag into art?

His name is Shelby Shadwell, and his
work isn’t garbage.

Using as inspiration an item that
you and I see simply as a device to dispose of wrappers, spoiled food and other
refuse, the University of Wyoming assistant drawing professor has built an
outstanding portfolio of charcoal-on-paper artwork that has drawn international
attention.

“I had no idea I was on the cover
until I opened an email that showed the image of the cover,” says Shadwell, a
graduate of Washington University in St. Louis (BFA, 2003) and Southern
Illinois University (MFA, 2006) whose personality is as engaging as his work.
“I just thought, ‘Wow, that’s so cool!’”

To this day, months after the
publication hit book shelves around the world, Shadwell still doesn’t know how
or why his drawing was selected for the annual’s cover. “But I know who I need
to ask. A guy named Jason Franz,” Shadwell says with a smile. “If I ever get a
chance to meet him, I’m gonna ask him.”

This is the second time that
Shadwell’s work has been included in one of the world’s most prominent drawing
publications, which was conceived in 2005 to support Manifest’s mission to
promote drawing as a rich and culturally significant art form. A series of
drawings featuring silhouetted semi-trucks in the landscape, many inspired by
images taken from the Wyoming Department of Transportation’s online road
cameras, appeared in the annual’s fifth edition a year ago.

Shadwell’s
latest body of work could be his most challenging: He is attempting to turn the
cockroach, generally regarded as one the most disgusting insects, into art. The
idea to portray cockroaches in his work was born during a 2011 summer residency
in Wendover, Utah, which, at the time, was dealing with an infestation of the
reddish-brown pests.

“My work is, in part, an
investigation into if and how one can find aesthetic beauty in things that have
particularly negative associations for people.
I hope that viewers can at least be contemplative about what is and is
not aesthetically pleasing, both personally and culturally,” Shadwell says.

“There’s an overall historical trend
in art that attempts, intentionally or otherwise, to elevate common day-to-day
experiences or items into high art. Robert Rauschenberg, with his bed
mattresses, and Andy Warhol, with his Campbell’s Soup can paintings, are two
rather famous examples,” he says. “It seems like whenever someone says that art
cannot be something like trash bags or cockroaches, there is always an artist
who wants to prove them wrong.”